Real algebraic morphisms represent few homotopy classes (Q996012)

The paper is devoted to the study of the problem of representing homotopy classes of maps between real algebraic varieties by regular maps. All real algebraic varieties considered in the paper are assumed to be affine. To any real algebraic variety~\(Y\), the authors associate a numerical invariant \(\beta(Y)\). This invariant is the supremum of all nonnegative integers~\(n\) having the following property: for any \(n\)-dimensional compact connected nonsingular real algebraic variety~\(X\), every continuous map from~\(X\) to~\(Y\) is homotopic to a regular map. The authors prove various upper bounds for \(\beta(Y)\). Some of these bounds are formulated in topological terms, other bounds make use of the subgroups \(H^{alg}_i(Y'; \mathbb Z/2) \subset H_i(Y'; \mathbb Z/2)\) of homology classes represented by algebraic subsets of~\(Y'\), where \(Y' = Y\) if \(Y\) is compact, and \(Y'\) is an algebraic one-point compactification of~\(Y\) otherwise. The paper also contains a proof of the following statement: For any compact connected smooth manifold~\(M\), given a nonnegative integer~\(k\), the following conditions are equivalent: (a) \(k\) is the smallest integer such that~\(M\) admits an algebraic model~\(Y\) with \(\beta(Y) = k\), (b) \(\pi_i(M)\) is trivial for \(1 \leq i \leq k\), and \(\pi_{k + 1}(M)\) is nontrivial \text{ (}where \(\pi_i(M)\) stands for the \(i\)-th homotopy group of~\(M\)).